Bartholomew, Craig and Bob Goudzwaard. Beyond the Modern Age: An Archeology of Contemporary Culture. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2017. $35.99, 320 pp.
I came across the book Beyond the Modern Age: An Archeology of Contemporary Culture several years ago when I started learning about the academic theories and ideas underpinning social-cultural engagement and political theology. I did this largely as a response to what I experienced and saw during 2020, at the height of the pandemic and societal division in the United States. The book is, arguably, a must-read for anyone interested in Christian political theology. I read about two thirds of the book more than two years ago, then tabled it (while “attempting” to finish it, I lugged the book with me on a countless number of trips over the period of two years, where I never mustered the drive to finish it), and finally finished in November of 2024, several weeks after the re-election of Donald Trump as President of the United States.
It is unique among Christian academic and theological literature in that one of the authors, Goudzwaard, is a trained economist as well as a philosopher, while Craig Bartholomew is a respected South African neo-Calvinist theologian (the neo-Calvinism of Kuyper, is apparent throughout this work). The book’s comprehensiveness and level of engagement with the philosophies that underpin modernity, and the subsequent secular philosophies that respond to the issues and paradoxes raised by modernity, leaves little to be desired. For instance, the book engages heavily with the post-Freudian social critic Philip Rieff, who has influenced subsequent analysis and cultural criticism from Christian authors, and continues to be studied. The economic expertise of Goudzwaard comes through towards the end of the book, where a penultimate section builds on Kuyper while also engaging with other Christian thinkers of the academy, such as Rene Girard (a Catholic). A final section particularizes the analysis to practical issues of how our economic systems ought to reflect an “accountability in economic life”, and an “economy of care,” with enterprises exercising a vision of “people using business as a force for good”, exemplifying the “preferential option for the poor”, and encouraging people to use their labor to “engage in acts of true cooperation and service.” (Goudzwaard and Bartholomew 242, 248-51)
The book is vigorously academic and dense in topic material, yet approachable for anyone familiar with the underlying ideas or some background in theology and philosophical thinkers. It does fair treatment to both Anglophone and Continental thinkers and philosophers who have shaped modern thought, while building towards a Kuyperian emphasis and lens to approach theology and Christian social engagement. The book is framed in the outlines of the authors’ dialogues with young students, presumably of the older millennial or early “gen-Z” generations (of whom I am one), exploring the drivers of those persons’ angst about the future as a whole, and the state of the world.
All this was formulated in the lead-up to 2016-17, just in the nascence of Trump’s first (and no longer only) presidential term (his ascension and the first wave of 21st century “populism” is not treated in detail in the text, due to its publishing and writing timeline). The sentiments of the students the authors engaged with in the run-up to the book have likely increased or metastasized as those students get older and many find themselves unable to generate a semblance of fiscal stability that is taken for granted by many, including by those in church or para-church audiences who would be likely to engage with this text. The authors build heavily from late 20th century scholarship on the relationship of secularity to religion, questions of pluralism (including The Gospel in a Pluralist Society), and the role of religious belief in politics, questions which are still highly relevant today, perhaps more than ever.
The authors have theological commitments to the 19th century Calvinist theology of Kuyper, plus contemporary 20th century developments in Christian theology, both of which are ironically beholden to modern frameworks which the book’s title suggests it seeks to move beyond. For one, the conclusion of the book speaks about a “spiritual battle” which “must be fought against worldviews that do not start with respect for what has been given us to take care of and preserve.” (Goudzwaard and Bartholomew 264) The very framing and concept of “worldview” (from the German Weltanschauung) has its origins in the modern (i.e. post-enlightenment) German idealism tradition of Kant and Hegel, thinkers who do receive treatment in the text.
This understanding would likely be baffling to an early Christian or one who holds a more classical Christian metaphysic. Equating “spiritual battles” to what is essentially the concept of the “war of ideas” seems like a very modernist (or, at least, left-brain) move, particularly when compared with a historic Augustinianism (and modern analogues such as the so-called “neo-orthodoxy” movement) which emphasizes the discontinuity between the earthly kingdom and the Heavenly kingdom. Other historical Christian metaphysics include a more ancient Near East perspective which sees spiritual beings, principalities and powers, engaged in human affairs on Earth and potentially influencing the zeitgeist and social affairs.
But there is another dual problem within the text, for the world in which we find ourselves, and a question that cuts to the root of neo-Calvinist theological praxis and notions of “public theology.” The fundamental problem could be analogized as a sort of “principal-agent problem” of the church, state, and society. The other significant problem lies more with how this “vision” has played out in the last quarter century, since the late 20th century debates over secularism and pluralism cemented alongside a presumably “neoliberal” order. (For academic treatments of Neoliberalism, see: Wilson, Julie. Neoliberalism. London: Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2017. Raschke, Carl. Neoliberalism and Political Theology: From Kant to Identity Politics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019.)
One could also define neoliberalism as synonymous with "metapolitics", particularly in economic issues of unlimited growth and drivers of the climate crisis, which the final chapters of the book address in depth. The book seems to suggest pretty directly that the church has a “special task” to “change the illusion in modern societies that technological progress can save us [from ecological / climate crisis, inequality etc.].” (Goudzwaard and Bartholomew 264) Debates about “abundance” (For an argument on the case for abundance, see Tupy, Marian. Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet. Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2022) and material limits aside, this argument seems congruent with other neo-Calvinist, Kuyperian approaches which seem to blur the distinction between church and state, what one Catholic historian and theologian Andrew Willard Jones described as viewing the primary purpose of the Church as “coming alongside the work of God in the world,” as if the purpose of the church is primarily or solely to “nudge the world” along its path towards the Kingdom of Heaven.
Other writers in Mere Orthodoxy have covered similar questions and problems that are related to this view at some length. One should acknowledge that the phenomenon being critiqued here may be a bowdlerization of Kuyper’s famous “not one inch over which Christ does not cry, mine!” (paraphrase, attributed to Kuyper). Nonetheless, it does seem as if contemporary neo-Calvinists have implicitly blurred the functions of the state and church as if confusing a head and an arm. Both may be the human domain that is equally claimed by Christ, yet they remain distinct. Perhaps this is done out of a desire to see their projected eschatological project through, or, more practically, amidst perverse incentives of attempting to "do" church in power centers such as Washington, DC and New York City, where there is often a constant pressure or even “temptation” to tie everything in scripture and church teaching to the political and social/cultural milieu, and “high society”, elite discourse.
Such issues are at play currently within the global Anglican communion, where in the UK there is a much tighter integration between the church, and both the state and politics. Suggestions for the Church of England's next leadership (and consequently, implications for the Atlanticist Neo-Calvinist project) amidst the Archbishop’s ouster include advocating for an Archbishop who will lead the church to speak into the “climate crisis” and global issues such as artificial intelligence, conveniently sidestepping the immensely critical, yet often mundane issue of renewal first in the church, of “returning to basics”, or of bolstering piety.
The advocates for this type of outward focus on sociopolitical and global issues espouse this approach, despite in the same op-eds and networks of institutions, acknowledging and lamenting the demographic trends and decline in said church. While it is theoretically possible for the church to address both her own (spiritual) renewal internally, and global or societal issues, the current ability of the church to do so in actuality should be questioned. While of course such issues and the two emphases I'm describing are not mutually exclusive for the church, at least theoretically, the question must be asked whether and, if so, why, the church is either qualified or mandated to address such issues as AI and climate crises, instead of seeking first to lead people on the path of Jesus, embodying a Gospel for all times and places? Demographic trends are an indicator of spiritual and ecclesial malaise that should be addressed by immediate solutions that are focused on strengthening the core functions of the Church as presenting word and sacrament, being a vessel of God’s grace, and shepherding people's devotion to Jesus.
Switching back over to considering these issues in the American context, the immediate problem with the economic orientation outlined in Beyond the Modern Age is the actual outcomes that such attempted policies have achieved. The authors certainly do not ascribe to a view of abundance or a “fecundity” of natural resources, which in itself seems like a position could be argued, adjudicated and presented more clearly for a non-academic economist audience. There seemed to have been a move among mostly urban, renewal-oriented American Christians in the late teens and early 2020s, to seek an “economy of care” within the existing political and economic order, one of blossoming monetary levels and government responses to every crisis that involved propping up debts.
The emphasis on the legitimacy of existing institutions and their contingent structures and paradigms to deliver an "economy of care" backfired greatly in the midst of the crisis encountered in 2020, but even before that with the directionality of the political upheaval and breakdown in the United States. Take a high interest rate regime that would “squeeze” consumers to consume, travel, and fly less, add elevated gas prices, upon which lower income working class people (and plenty of families) rely for their daily transportation to work and essential errands, and you have but one example of what created the backlash seen in the 2024 election. If an “economy of care” oriented towards a conception of the common good equates to “you will own nothing, and you will be happy”, or a strangulation of everyday people’s modes of life in order to reach that destination, then Christians seeking this aim should rightfully expect a fervent backlash, from both churched and unchurched hoi polloi.
Urban centered renewal-focused Christians and Neo-Calvinists' ambivalence towards the structural issues within institutions, and the proximity of prominent writers within such institutions reveals the incoherence of an uncritical neo-Calvinism; if things are consummating towards the Kingdom anyway, and the church is providing the spiritual fodder for that movement, but also if the Church is in a sense, merely "along for the ride", then what need is there to reform institutions or conceive of alternative ways of doing care, common welfare, and conduct Christian charity in creative approaches outside the strictures of "official" institutions? Are any other alternative proposals to Kuyper's "economy of care" even considered to be valid as a part of the Church's mission of renewal in the world? In this, there is perhaps an inconvenient truth: Neo-Calvinism, despite its roots in the Reformed tradition and appeals to semper reformanda, seems to have actually played out, in the 21st century American context, as paternalistic, imperious, incumbent, and sectarian, not much unlike the Medieval Catholic Church.
Time will tell whether the “beyond” of our present late-modern age will come in the form of re-enchantment amidst superabundance, the promise of a millennium of care following the vein of the late 20th century pluralist humanist Christian movement, which had many of its roots in Netherlands’ most famous historical thinker, or something else entirely. But what should become clear is that the actual trajectory of modern American Neo-Calvinism cannot sustain itself, and is not where reform is to be found.